The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK has said that the policy to protect the profits of American and French companies needs to change urgently.
An umbrella group of Rohingya rights organizations today urged on the United States and France to impose sanctions on gas revenue in Myanmar. They said that the money earned from the trade of Myanmar’s natural resources helped pay for the Myanmar military’s crimes.
“We… urge President Biden of the United States of America and President Macron of France to urgently introduce sanctions on gas revenue in Burma (Myanmar),” the group said in a statement released by the London-based Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK). The statement further said, “Gas extraction projects which involve American Chevron and French Total provide hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to the Burmese military annually.”
BROUK is an umbrella organisation of 21 rights groups worldwide.
It said gas extraction projects, involving American firm Chevron and French Total, provide hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to the Myanmar military annually.
February 1 will mark a year since the military coup in Myanmar. The US, EU, UK and Canada have imposed a number of sanctions on sources of income for the Burmese military, include on timber and gems. “But gas production, which is one of the military’s biggest revenue sources, has so far gone untouched,” the statement read.
Funding Myanmar army
Both, President Joe Biden and President Emmanuel Macron have blocked sanctions on the gas industry, the BROUK affiliates said in their statement. In doing so, they are “protecting the profits of American and French companies ahead of the lives of Burmese people,” they said. “This urgently needs to change.”
Arguing that the two leaders were tacitly funding the war the Myanmar army was waging against its own people, the statement released by the Rohingya organisations said that “sanctions on gas revenue would stop the military getting their hands on hundreds of millions of dollars which currently help fund their crimes against the Burmese people.”
According to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency, more than 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed since 25 August 2017 and over 34,000 have been thrown into fires, says the Ontario International Development Agency. Over 114,000 Rohingya Muslims have been beaten and up to 18,000 Rohingya women and girls have been raped, the organisation says.
Nearly a million Rohingya Muslims are currently living as refugees in Bangladesh’s southern district of Cox’s Bazar after fleeing the August 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The statement added that the Myanmar military are now “attacking people all over Burma, killing children, burning villages and torturing with impunity.”
